Hospital Elderly Life Program (HELP)

Evidence-based Recommendations

After evaluating our current process it was evident that we needed to improve three major delirium inhibiting practices for our patient base. Dr. Fong and her team at the Institute for Aging Research promote a program used in many hospitals for the prevention of delirium called the Hospital Elderly Life Program (HELP) (Fong, 2009). The HELP program stresses the importance of focusing on our three intervention measures to prevent delirium: mental stimulation, nutrition and sleep.

A study on the impact that nutrition can have on delirium, completed by Dr. Kennith Kulp, concluded that those getting proper nutrition and therefore maintaining a healthier body are less likely to conduct delirium by over one standard

The reason for doing this would be to track and trend the data that is collected since implementation, while getting direct feedback from the nurses on what they think needs to be improved or done to continuously better the program. The data will be collected through the tracking of each volunteer visit, as well as through the medical observations of the staff members. During these visits the volunteer will be checking in on their sleep from the night before, their nutritional habits and their overall interaction with the patient (conversations, activities,

To ensure we maintain our initiative, we plan to monitor the HELP program closely. We want to make sure not only our patients who could potentially be affected by delirium have access to this program but the program is being used to its full potential. Continuous training for the nurses is essential for the success of the HELP program. By making sure all nurses are trained twice a year on how the program works we can help keep their knowledge of HELP current, as well as inform them of new developments that have been getting skipped over. We want to monitor the results of the program so we can accurately gather data on delirium rates in a hospital setting, continue to strive for perfection and the elimination of delirium, via the HELP program. The upkeep of HELP is critical so we can guarantee its effectiveness to the